Learning to Remember
by Kaeberlily
Summary: Harry has lost his memory after receiving an almost fatal curse to the head. Ginny desperately tries to make him remember not only for his sake, but for hers.Disclaimer: All characters and bases storyline belong to R.K. Rowling. They are all hers!


Chapter 1 – The beginning of the end

Chapter 1 – The beginning of the end 

'How can he be so cruel?' asked Ginny as she listened to the music. Her pain gradually ebbed away as the calming sound waves washed over her. Lord of the Rings music could always make her happy and she silently thanked Hermione for bringing her this wonderful, healing music. Her thoughts suddenly returned to that of Harry Potter, the boy who lived, and now the boy who defeated Voldemort at last. He was only 18. The memories of the final battle were still fresh in her mind as she lay on her bed in the burrow.

Flashback:

_It had rained that night, when Voldemort finally showed himself to the world and Harry courageously met him in battle. The death eaters had him surrounded, and Harry was not sure what to do. He looked around anxiously, and for a few moments, the world seemed to stop. Harry could see the Death Eaters leering at him. He could feel Voldemort's glare burning into him, but there was no sound. After what felt like an eternity, the silence was broken with a quiet pop. Dumbledore had apparated onto the field. He was looking straight at Voldemort, and of all the things he could've done, smiling was not what Harry had expected him to do. The expression on Voldemort's face faltered as more pops were to be heard around the battlefield. Harry looked around, bewildered. All around him stood his friends from DA, Aurours, and also a couple of the teachers from Hogwarts School. He almost felt happy, but at that moment, all hell broke loose and fighting was everywhere. As the battle keep raging between the Death Eaters and the Aurours everything seemed to be going well for the people of the light, but at that moment, the crowd of Death Eaters dispersed from around Voldemort. Harry rushed at him from behind, but Voldemort knew he was there. He whipped around to find Harry's wand pointed directly at his heart and easily deflected his curse, but as their duel grew more and more fierce, Voldemort found it harder and harder to fight Harry back. A reckless hatred, which glowed in Harry's eyes like green fire, had overtaken him and with one last curse, he sent the man that had haunted him for years to his death. Voldemort had been struck down with all of the force Harry could muster. He was dead. At that moment, Bellatrix screamed with rage and she shot a curse at Harry. It hit him straight on. Harry looked up, at first shocked, but then a look of relief passed over his face, almost as if he was happy it was all over, and then he plummeted to the ground. Ginny shrieked with agony and shot Bellatrix with the killing curse, which knocked Bellatrix unconscious. Ginny rushed to Harry's side as the Death Eaters ran for cover anywhere they could. Each and every one of them was caught and taken prisoner that night. Ginny knelt by Harry's unmoving body, fear clutching at her heart, threatening to overwhelm her. She screamed in anguish, Harry was dead. He had been taken from her. She fell on top of his chest and let all her tears out. It was like she had opened up a floodgate. She was drowning in an endless pool of memories, thoughts, feelings and tears, but there was something else there too; a faint sound that wasn't coming from her. Through her own heartbeats, Ginny heard something, a small beat that didn't belong to her. Then another, she looked at Harry and saw his chest rise slightly as he breathed in. He was still alive, but barely. Ginny had to get him to St. Mungo's Hospital and fast. She grabbed his wrist and side-along-apparated to the back door of the Hospital and heaved him in. With her last ounce of strength, she told the nurse what had happened. The nurse, Hilary, quickly took Harry to intensive care and told her to go to the waiting room. Once there, Ginny waited, and waited while more tears poured down her face. 'What if he doesn't live through this?' Many thought's like this went through her head, but she tried to push them from her mind. She felt empty, yet at the same time, so overcome by emotion that it didn't seem like she could go on._

_Eventually, many of the people from the battle came to the Hospital and waited with her, bringing along the injured (of whom included Ron, Bill and Lupin), and also reports of casualties from the battle. A few of the Aurours had died, but none that Ginny had known well. The most saddening deaths to hear about were that of her friends Nymphadora Tonks, Luna Lovegood and also her beloved professor, Dumbledore. Her tears, which had almost dried up, had released themselves again upon hearing this news. She curled up in a chair near her mother and was soon asleep from exhaustion and anguish. Hours later, the night nurse came in to tell everyone who had stuck around in the waiting room, namely the Weasley's, to go home, and that she would contact them when the patients were ready for visitors. _

_Three days later they got a letter saying that many people had woken out of comas, Ron and Bill included, but not Harry. Five days after the battle Lupin had made enough of a recovery to go home, but still nothing about Harry. Ginny was becoming a nervous wreck from the lack of news. They waited another two weeks with nothing. Ginny finally decided that she didn't care if Harry was still sleeping; she was going to go see him. _

_She went to the Hospital to visit Harry, even if he was unconscious, but the man she saw there was not the one she had loved since the first time she laid eyes on him. This was not the Harry that she had shared so many intimate nights with. This Harry had no memory whatsoever of his life. He was an empty shell. Nothing more than a fragment of the old Harry. Filled with horror, Ginny listened to what the nurse had to say about amnesia. "There is no spell or charm that can bring his memory back," she said. "The only thing that you can do is take him to his old house and teach him to live as he did before. Make sure he does the same things, you know?" So Ginny introduced herself to Harry and after signing a few papers for the hospital - so that they were sure Ginny was who she said she was - she took Harry home to The Burrow. _

_He didn't remember anything. Nothing in the house triggered a sudden return of memory, but at least he trusted the Weasley's enough to believe that they were telling the truth about what his life had been like for the past 18 years. It really helped when they showed him pictures of his past. Even if he didn't know whom the people in the pictures were. After a few weeks, life at The Burrow became routine, with everyone struggling to be happy and confident that Harry would regain his memory. However, Ginny was starting to wonder if he would ever get his memory back. Shouldn't he be remembering things by now?_

End Flashback:

Months had passed and still Harry didn't remember his past. It was just a blur of nothing; an empty chasm that needed to be filled, and which Ginny wished to fill. The past months felt like years to her. She was no longer happy. Little things that used to make her smile, would now just remind her of him. He was a part of her, and once you find that happiness and lose it, you don't recover from the hurt quickly. So she wasn't whole, wasn't happy, not without Harry. He was everything to her.

Ginny tried to pull her thoughts away from Harry, away from pain, but her heart wouldn't let her. So she sat there on her bed, leaning against the wall, and holding onto the giant pillow that she had made when she was young, just thinking about him and wondering if it would ever be the same. Even if it never would be, she had to try. She had to make him remember her. She needed to make him remember. Ginny turned off her lamp and let the tears trickle out as she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.


End file.
